"We are left, then, with a curious dual organization binding anthropology to 'development': the field that fetishizes the local, the autonomous, the traditional, locked in a strange dance with its own negation, its own evil twin that would destroy locality, autonomy, and tradition in the name of progress. Anthropology resents its twin fiercely (hence the oft-noted distate of mainstream anthropoly for 'development' work), even as it must recognize a certain intimacy with it, and a disturbing, inverted resemblance. Like an unwanted ghost, or an uninvited relative, 'development' haunts the house of anthropology. Fundamentally disliked by a discipline that at heart loves all those things that development intends to destroy, anthropology´s evil twin remains too close a relative to be simply kicked out. Thus we end up with an 'applied' subfield (development anthropology) that conflicts with its own discipline´s most basic theoretical and political commitments (hence its 'evil'); yet which is logically entailed in the very constitution of that field's distinctive specialization (hence its status as 'twin' to a field that is always concerned with the 'less', the 'under', the 'not-yet'... developed."
James Ferguson
(Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology, 1996)
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